White House Special Advisor Elizabeth Warren will depart her post as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “architect” effective August 1. Raj Date, who has served as associate director of Research, Markets, & Regulations at CFPB will assume Warren’s role as special advisor to the secretary of the Treasury on the CFBP, and Warren will return to her position at Harvard Law School, the Treasury Department announced today.
The CFPB launched last week after Warren played an integral role in developing and preparing the bureau for its executive role as a consumer protection watchdog under the Dodd-Frank Act.
Rather than nominate Warren to serve as the bureau’s official director, President Obama nominated former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to lead.
Now, the Treasury says, she is going back to Boston.
“Professor Warren has done an extraordinary job standing up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her efforts to simplify mortgage and credit card disclosures, protect military families from abusive and deceptive financial practices, and bring aboard top talent like Richard Cordray and Raj Date have built a strong foundation for the Bureau’s future success,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a statement.
Under her watch, the CFPB has already begun its efforts to combine mortgage disclosure forms for consumers and lenders, among other consumer protection initiatives.
Some have speculated that Warren, who will return to her position as Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard, may make a play for a Massachusetts Senate seat in the 2012 elections, which is currently occupied by Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).
For now, she is returning to Harvard and is leaving the bureau she helped build in the hands of Date, a Wall Street veteran and founder of the Washington D.C. research group Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy.
“Raj has an impressive background in financial services, academia, government, and non-profit organizations,” said Geithner, “and I am pleased that he will serve in this new capacity as the CFPB continues moving forward with its important work.”
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
